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At a field day at Kenagy
Family Farms in Albany, Ore., farmers and collaborators share
information about their project. Such networking opportunities
lead to more meaningful research projects.
– Photo
by John Luna |
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In many areas, groups of farmers or ranchers have banded together
to conduct on-farm research about a topic of interest – with
marked success. Producer research teams work especially well when
university, USDA or nonprofit organization researchers join as part
of a “participatory” research team.
The power of participatory research comes from combining the creativity,
experience and resources of many people to address a common problem.
The data that results from trials conducted on several farms across
several years also is more reliable and more trustworthy than a
few replicated trials conducted at one or two locations.
While farmers and ranchers gain a greater understanding of their
unique production systems and learn to use simple research methods
to answer questions on a range of topics, researchers benefit from
conducting research in the “real world” context of working
farms.
The participatory research model values both farmer and scientific
ways of learning, effectively integrating them to generate new knowledge
for more informed production and management decisions.
By collaborating with university or USDA researchers, farmers
benefit from their technical experience in research design, data
collection and analysis. A common lament of farmers and ranchers
conducting on-farm research is that the trials are established with
good intent, but other time-consuming activities during the growing
season prevent them from taking data at the proper time. Forming
partnerships with researchers who can help collect data improves
the process.
“Rather than one-sided information coming from the extension
educator to the farmer, on-farm research using a researcher and
a farmer is very persuasive,” said Scott Marlow, director
of community-based agriculture for RAFI-USA. One of his projects
involved working with North Carolina peanut growers interested in
reducing their use of pesticides.
“Not only does on-farm research give the farmer power to
evaluate new information, but it also provides an inexpensive way
for a researcher to generate information for himself and the university,”
Marlow said. “And that information really gets out in the
community.”
Collaborative research conducted on multiple farms can be structured,
although farmers may want to opt for a simpler experimental design
using paired treatments on individual farms. This approach is more
suited to questions addressing the choice among just two or three
treatments. (Learn more about treatments.)
In western Oregon, a group of seven farmers and university researchers
evaluated a strip-tillage vegetable production system as an alternative
to the existing conventional tillage systems. The group established
side-by-side trials using plots of at least two acres on their fields
each year for three years. Each trial consisted of just two treatments:
strip-till and “grower tillage.”
Participating farmers used their own equipment to harvest the
vegetable crops, and the processing company buying the vegetables
assessed quality based on yield and grade.
In nine on-farm, paired comparisons of the strip-till system for
sweet corn production, researchers found a 78-percent probability
of increasing net profit by $75 an acre and a 22-percent probability
of losing $30 an acre using the strip-till system compared to the
standard grower tillage systems.
By looking at the yield response on individual fields, the growers
can evaluate various cultural factors that may have caused the yield
declines where they occurred. A multi-site approach also takes advantage
of the collective creativity and resources of the farms. Participating
farmers typically meet to share results. Many times, this leads
to more questions for the group to research.
After testing one strip-till machine design for three years, the
Oregon vegetable growers decided to embark on a different approach.
They pooled their resources and received a SARE grant to build a
faster and more efficient strip-till machine to use in ongoing trials.
-- John Luna, Oregon State University
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